


Second Opinion

by autobotscoutriella



Category: Transformers (Bay Movies)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Loyalty, Moral Dilemmas, one person three bodies, set post-ROTF/pre-DOTM, tagging both variants of the Arcee character tag since I do write her as a "trio" character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-04-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:55:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23799613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/autobotscoutriella/pseuds/autobotscoutriella
Summary: In the wake of Optimus's resurrection, things have begun to change for the Autobots. Ratchet isn't sure he likes it.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 13
Collections: FandomWeekly (2019-2020) Writing Challenge on Dreamwidth





	Second Opinion

**Author's Note:**

> Bayverse Optimus really needs someone to call him on his shit once in a while. Mid-movie rewatch, it's kind of noticeable that nobody really seems to be in a position to after Jazz dies.
> 
> Originally written for [FandomWeekly](https://fandomweekly.dreamwidth.org/318434.html) prompt "Loyalty".

Ratchet had never been one to accept Optimus Prime's decisions without questions. When he disagreed with the Prime's decisions—and it happened, often—he brought it up, in private when possible, in public if necessary. It required a delicate balance of respect and honesty on both sides, but for four million years the arrangement had been straightforward. Optimus made the decisions he had to, and when Ratchet felt they crossed a line, there was a conversation. It worked. It meant that no matter what else Ratchet questioned, his loyalty was never on the line.

But on Earth, things had changed.

Ratchet was absolutely sure that it was unconscious on Optimus's part, whatever other Autobots might be starting to think. He had known Optimus since before he _was_ Optimus, and an intentional power grab was out of the question. But that kind of thing didn't have to be intentional. Ratchet had seen it before. A mech could start off with the best of intentions—preserving human-Cybertronian relations, perhaps—and end up...

Well, he wasn't sure where they had ended up, but it involved too many executions and too few conversations for his liking. And for the first time in a few million years, raising objections had become difficult.

It wasn't good.

"You still on this planet, Doc?"

Ratchet blinked and realized he had been staring at the (rather pitiful) rack of medical tools for almost a full minute. "I'm sorry, Arcee. Did you say something?"

Arcee—or at least the blue third of her currently seated next to her half-repaired pink and purple bodies on the concrete slab serving as a medical berth—cleared her throat pointedly. "I asked if you knew how long the active mission will take."

Trying to crush the sudden alarm bells ringing in the back of his processor, Ratchet said slowly, "What mission?"

"Right, you weren't at the briefing." Arcee leaned back against her pink body and hauled her tires up onto the slab. "It was at 0200. Last-minute. Human hostile activity that they thought might be Decepticon-connected."

"'They' thought? Who thought?" Ratchet stepped carefully away from the storage rack and fixed Arcee with the stare that every young Autobot quickly learned meant business.

Arcee shrugged. "The intel came from somewhere higher up in the human military. I didn't get an actual name. I'm assuming Prime vetted it and agreed—I mean, that's the usual procedure." She paused, optics fixing on Ratchet's. "Right?"

"Right." Ratchet rolled that information over in his processor, analyzing Arcee's words carefully. That was—or at least, always had been—the procedure when working with things that _might be_ Decepticon activity. But that was when there had been a full Autobot Command to bring in intel, vet the information, and discuss solutions. Most of them were dead or off-planet now, and it seemed that this time—and Primus only knew how many other times—Prime had made the decision on his own, or with only human input.

That was concerning. That was deeply concerning.

"You didn't go with them?"

Arcee shrugged and tried to look casual. Her shoulder fins twitched uncomfortably. "Yeah, not cleared for action until at least two of me are back on my feet. You know the drill."

"They're planning on action on the basis of something that _might_ be somehow connected to the Decepticons?" Ratchet didn't hear if Arcee replied, because his processor was going into overdrive at the implications.

The odds were very, _very_ good that Optimus Prime had just sent a decent number of Autobots into a human battle, and involved them in yet another war that wasn't theirs, on a planet that wasn't theirs.

Optimus wouldn't have seen it that way. Ratchet was sure that if he went and asked, the Prime would have an explanation and it would be a good one. Perhaps there was a mitigating factor. Maybe they had picked up traces of a Cybertronian weapon, or sighted a familiar vehicle, or...

...And if they had, it would have been "Decepticon activity", not "Decepticon connection".

Ratchet vented slowly, in and out. It was time for a serious conversation. Past time, really, but he had wanted to give Optimus the benefit of the doubt. After all, a lot had happened over the past few years, and dying had to make everything that came after just a bit more complicated.

But this—this endangered every Autobot, and there were few enough of them as it was without involving themselves in human wars.

"You're in another galaxy again, Doc."

Ratchet sighed and passed a hand across his optics. "Arcee, I need to speak with Optimus. Hold down the medical fort for a few hours?"

"Sure." Arcee didn't even move to swing her tires off the slab. "Don't know what good you're thinking it'll do, though."

Ratchet stopped mid-step. She wasn't wrong, but hearing it out loud... "What do you mean?"

Arcee hesitated, as if thinking through her words very carefully, and tapped one blue hand on the shoulderplate of her unmoving purple body. "Just that Optimus...hasn't seemed to want to talk much lately, that's all."

Ratchet found a defense leaping to the front of his processor, and crushed it before he could say it out loud. Arcee was only saying out loud what he had been thinking. "Well, I'll tell him it's my order as his chief medical officer."

Arcee laughed. It only sounded slightly forced. "Good luck. If he asks, I'm telling him I didn't tell you."

That was reassuring. Ratchet rolled his optics and started toward the door. "Just leave this to me, Arcee. Optimus is the Prime, after all. He knows what he's doing, and he knows when to listen."

At least back on Cybertron Optimus had always been willing to listen to reason. It was how he had earned Ratchet's loyalty, and that of hundreds of other Autobots. Earth had changed him, but…

Ratchet had to believe that _that_ had not changed, and would not.

If it had…

No. It wouldn’t.


End file.
